Boughten

[David A. Daniel]

If he picked up boughten in the US then somehow he ran into the three or
four people who would use it. Dictionaries are saying Northern Midland US
dialect, substandard, but I only ever heard it used one time in my life,
some years ago by a friend of mine from Texas, who also uses a bunch of
other "substandard, dialect" turns of phrase. Anyway, in Cameron's case,
probably just a slip of the tong (which is how they winged Willy Wong).
DAD


___________________________________________
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" Benjamin Franklin

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Michael Quinion
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2010 6:07 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Boughten

:      Boughten
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---

The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron (Eton and Oxford), was
visiting a big bakery in Bolton last week. He made a joke about his
failure to make his own bread: "So it'll be back to boughten loaves in
future." This adjective (meaning shop-bought) isn't known in standard
British English, though it was once in the dialects of southern England
(almost completely defunct now, I believe). I'm wondering if Cameron might
have picked it up in the US. Some newspaper comments I've read suggest
that, though it's known, it's deprecated as dialectal or regional. What do
you say about its US distribution and status?

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.801 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2800 - Release Date: 04/10/10
15:32:00

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org